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Putting A Price On Creativity: Skyrim Game Mods

In recent events of the gaming community, the well-respected names of Bethesda and Valve have come together to introduce a payment service for modders and players alike for the massively popular game Skyrim. Within hours they were met with waves of outcry as petitioners quickly rallied over 130,000 signatures in response to their announcement. Just what were they trying to achieve here and how did it all go so wrong?

The announcementon Bethesda’s blog pitched the idea as a way to give back to the modders, giving them the credit and compensation they deserve.

our community wants to reward the very best creators, and that they deserve to be rewarded.

While their intentions were pure I think they failed to realise that they were destroying their most respected ideology of the game, that you could do anything with it and had the freedom to tweak it to…